


If Wishes Were Eight-Legged Horses

by KuriKoer



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Loki - Fandom, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Crack, Crossover, Fluff, Gen, Other, Wishes, alt scene, crystal balls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:12:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuriKoer/pseuds/KuriKoer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I want my brother back. He must be so scared..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Wishes Were Eight-Legged Horses

"You must return my brother!" Thor threatened, brandishing Mjolnir.

"What's said is said," the stranger smirked. 

Thor frowned. "It was said in jest," he insisted, uncertain.

The distinction did not seem to impress the man. "Oh, was it?"

The man was clearly a sorcerer, and his manner of clothing was unmanly, and so Thor wasn't exactly embarrassed to feel the first tingles of attraction towards him. Still, he was enraged at the loss of Loki. "You must tell me where he is!" he roared.

The stranger seemed to disregard Thor's menace. It was disconcerting. "You know very well where he is," he said, walking around Thor with elegant, predatory grace. Thor glimpsed another realm, faraway in the mists. This must be where this stranger's magic had snatched Loki to, where he had hidden Thor's brother.

"You must bring him back to me," he growled. He thought of Loki, alone again, small and afraid in that unfamiliar place. At best. At worst, he was free to roam yet another land he could attempt to ravish and control. Thor was fairly certain _that_ throne would be more difficult to conquer than it would seem, and that this king might be more deceiving than Loki and Odin himself put together.

"Thor," the man said patiently, "go back to your Avengers. Play with your toys and your costumes," he waved a dismissive hand at Mjolnir and at Thor's cape and gleaming helmet. "Forget about Loki."

"I can't," Thor whispered.

"I brought you a gift," the man said suddenly, apropos of nothing. "It isn't quite a golden throne and a realm to rule, nor is it a magical mallet," his smile was slight and offensive, "but you might find it of interest." He produced a small toy, a trinket, Thor thought, and danced the crystal globe on his fingers. Thor distrusted the illusion, as much if not more than he'd detested his brother's trickery.

"What is it?" he asked with dark suspicion.

The man chuckled and let the globe slide from his one hand to the other and back, seemingly on air. "It's a crystal," he shrugged, "nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it," he held it up to Thor's scrutiny, "it'll show you your dreams."

Thor glanced warily at the crystal. Inside it he could see Loki as he once had been, young and carefree and laughing in a banquet along with their parents and friends. He could see Jane by his side, wearing his mother's golden betrothal robes. He could see his friends, the Avengers, raising a glass together to the peace between the two realms.

The man suddenly snatched the crystal from Thor's hungry gaze. "But this is not a gift for an ordinary demigod," he shook his head and smirked, "who takes care of his mad brother."

Thor could feel the wonder and beauty of the magical sphere in the stranger's hand, and a tear or two welled in his eyes.

"Do you want it?"

Thor ached for it. He wanted nothing more.

And the man set his condition with that same slight, condescending smile. "Then forget your brother."

As if torn away from a sweet dream, Thor sighed with regret. "I can't." He took a deep breath, steeling himself. "I appreciate what you're offering, but I want Loki back. He must be scared..."

"Thor," the man cut him, and his voice was every bit as cold as the Allfather's could be. "Don't defy me." He tilted his beautiful, sharp chin at the crystal, and in a moment it turned into a snake. Thor had no fear, but he felt a natural aversion to the creatures so associated with his brother's pain and misfortune. He stumbled back as the cold, smooth creature looped itself around his throat and the chest plates of his armour. Struggling to remove it, he discovered that it was not a snake, but his brother's patterned scarf. He tossed it to the floor with disgust.

"What sorcery is this?" he cried, outraged.

The man chuckled again. "You're no match for me, Thor," he said kindly, almost fondly.

Thor growled and stood taller, his imposing figure and Mjolnir enough to strike fear in the heart of any enemy. Except this one. He only eyed Thor with that same slight smile, and Thor remembered rushing time and again to tackle a body that wasn't there. He sighed with defeat, however temporary, and let himself sag.

"I need my brother back," he insisted, stubborn in the face of all adversity. He'd travelled the realms by dark magic for Loki, he'd fought armies for Loki, he defied Odin for Loki. He would do it all again, if necessary.

The sorcerer seemed to understand that. He shrugged, seemingly easing away from the battle of wills between them, allowing Thor this one break. "He's there," he pointed out the window, "in my castle."

The view outside was no longer Midgard. It was an eerie realm, full of vicious faeries and cowardly goblins, full of monsters and magic and trickery. Far in the distance and the mists, Thor could discern a tall structure, foreboding and crooked and dark.

"Do you still want to look for him?" the stranger asked gently, as if assuming Thor would balk at the challenge. Thor ignored the slight, though in any other situation, he would have roared with rage and a bloody battle would have ensued. He would brave anything to find Loki, but he would also be wily if need be, and this situation called for diplomacy. Thor had grown a lot as a man since his last visit to Jotunheim. He let the man's offending question slide, and countered it with his own.

"Is that the castle beyond the Goblin City?" he asked calmly, face dark with resolution and anger, fingers tightening around Mjolnir's handle.

"Turn back, Thor," the man called to him, and they were standing on a wind-swept hill overlooking the city's walls, Midgard and all that was in it far away and out of reach. "Turn back before it's too late."

It was already too late, Thor thought grimly. He had dedicated his life to follow the path of rescuing Loki, helping Loki, fighting Loki, and then the same over and over again. This would be his existence from now on, these endless cycles following the footsteps of his brother.

"I can't," he said to the other man softly. "Don't you understand that I can't?"

"What a pity," the man whispered, and Thor wasn't sure if he was being mocked, or if the man truly understood what was at stake here, what Thor had decided to sacrifice.

He took a deep breath and scoped the view before him. "It doesn't look that far," he said, mostly to himself. It was encouraging; Thor had been in many a campaign that appeared more dangerous and arduous than this, and for lesser odds.

"It's further than you think." The man's voice came from too near over his shoulder, his words whispered with a warm breath over Thor's ear, and Thor shivered as he felt the man's heat so close behind him. "Time is short," the man continued, stepping back from Thor's form, and Thor felt cold and bereft as the man walked away. "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth before your baby brother becomes one of us... forever." Was it Thor's imagination, or was the Goblin King's tone suggestive? "Such a pity," the man added with undisguised mockery, and the words echoed long after he'd disappeared into thin air.

Trickery, Thor thought darkly. Sorcery. "The Labyrinth," he repeated, eyeing the obstacle course in his way. A little grin started at the corner of his mouth, and then spread to the rest of him like warm sunshine. "It doesn't look that hard." He started rotating the hammer by his side, preparing it for battle, for smashing through walls and skulls until he was at the castle in the centre of the Labyrinth. It wouldn't take any time at all. "Well, come on, Mjolnir," he said to his beloved weapon, ready to soar through the thick, oddly-coloured clouds that even now started crackling with lightning.

**Author's Note:**

> Some lines lifted directly from the Labyrinth, no infringement intended


End file.
